PAL service providers are illegal contractors—PALEA

Press Release
September 14, 2011
PALEA
The Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA) denounced as illegal contractors the third-party service providers contracted by Philippine Airlines (PAL) for the controversial outsourcing plan. “The outsourcing plan should be scrapped since the service providers are illegal labor-only contractors,” asserted Gerry Rivera, PALEA president and vice chair of Partido ng Manggagawa.

PALEA produced another certification from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Region 7 as evidence of its claim. This document is in addition to a previous certification from the DOLE NCR. Both documents state:

“This is to certify that based on our records the following entities are not registered as a contractor/subcontractor under Department Order No. 18 series of 2002:
1.      Sky Kitchen Philippines, Inc.
2.      Sky Logistics Philippines, Inc.
3.      SPI Global Holdings, Inc.”

The certification was signed by DOLE NCR Regional Director Raymundo Agravante on September 7, 2011 and DOLE Region 7 OIC-Regional Director Exequiel Sarcauga on September 12, 2011.

Rivera explained that under Section 11 (Registration of Contractors and Subcontractors) of DO 18-02, it is stated that “Failure to register shall give rise to the presumption that the contractor is engaged in labor-only contracting.”

“These bogus contractors mean that PAL’s contractualization scheme is illegal. This complements the dagdag-bawas employment contract in the service providers being offer to retrenched PAL workers,” Rivera added.

Businessman Manny Osmena of Cebu, purported proprietor of Sky Kitchen and Sky Logistics, has long been suspected of merely fronting for PAL owner Lucio Tan as exposed in the blog of journalist Raisa Robles.

Most PAL employees to be terminated are being offered a monthly wage of just PhP 11,111.50 for working eight hours a day for six days a week. In comparison, the collective bargaining agreement between PAL and PALEA stipulates that PAL workers work 7 ½ a day for five days a week.

Also from regular employees of PAL, the outsourced workers will become contractual workers at the service providers. “PAL employees who have been working for years will be downgraded to probationary status for six months and after which he or she can simply be terminated since there is no security of tenure at the service providers,” Rivera insisted.